


and i'm home

by procellous



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magical Girls, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Character Death, Gen, Magical Girl Pidge | Katie Holt, Puella Magi Madoka Magica AU, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-16 17:34:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10576134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procellous/pseuds/procellous
Summary: One night after the Kerberos Mission fails, Katie Holt gets a mysterious visitor in her bedroom.(Make a contract with me!)





	1. Make a contract! ☆ Do not tempt fate

**Author's Note:**

> /人◕‿‿◕人\

Tears pricked in Katie’s eyes, the sharp humiliation of failure. Her arms were sore from the guard’s iron grip, and she was pretty sure she had a sunburn from waiting for the bus for an hour.  
  
Matt wouldn’t have given up, she reminded herself. Neither would Dad. There had to be a way, something that would get her into the Garrison without Iverson noticing her, but she couldn’t think of anything. She’d get thrown out as soon as they saw her.  
  
She slammed her head against the desk, trying to come up with an idea. Anything.  
  
“Hello, Katie Holt,” something said behind her. She nearly jumped out of her skin, spinning around and pressing herself against the desk.  
  
It was some kind of cat…ferret…thing, pure white except for a large red oval on its back. It had two sets of ears; a pair of pointed ears and another pair hanging down from those, with golden rings floating around them. It was smiling at her.  
  
“How hard did I hit my head?” Katie muttered.  
  
“I’m not a hallucination,” the thing said. Its mouth didn’t move from the smile, tail swishing behind it. “I’m Kyubey, and I can grant your wish. All you need to do is make a contract with me!”  
  
Small, adorable talking animal things that can grant wishes. Katie had seen more than enough anime to know where this is going.  
  
“What would happen if I do?”  
  
“You’d become a magical girl, in exchange for your wish!” Called it. “What do you say?”  
  
A wish in exchange for becoming a frilly superhero. This deal sounded great. “So, you could bring my family back and all I’d have to do is become a magical girl?”  
  
“That would be easy for me. Is that your wish?”  
  
“Yes!” She said quickly. “I want to find my family.”  
  
“Done.” The tendrils on either side of its head stretched towards her, and sunk deep into her chest. She screamed in pain as a small egg-shaped jewel was drawn out of her. “This is your Soul Gem, and the source of your power. It will become clouded as you use your power, and you will need to fight witches and claim the Grief Seeds that they drop to clean it.”  
  
Katie stared at the green gem. “Witches?”  
  
“They’re the enemy of magical girls. If magical girls are born from wishes, then witches are born from curses.”  
  
“Wait a minute, am I the only magical girl? Am I fighting them alone?”  
  
“You aren’t alone, I’ll be with you. Want to transform?”  
  
Katie hesitated. “How do I…”  
  
“Hold out your Soul Gem, and focus on transforming. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to do it effortlessly!”  
  
“Here goes nothing,” she muttered, and held out her Soul Gem.  
  
Bright light flared around her, and she rushed to the mirror. She was wearing a skirt; two layers of ruffled dark green fabric that ended at mid thigh, and a matching green jacket that looked vaguely like Dad’s uniform jacket, only without sleeves, over a black undershirt with green bracers. Her Soul Gem had embedded itself in her forehead.  
  
“I’m a magical girl,” she said. “I’m a magical girl.” It didn’t feel any more real. “Matt’s going to freak out when I tell him.”  
  
Kyubey jumped up on her desk, twining around her laptop like a cat.  
  
“Holy shit, Matt—Kyubey, where is he? And Dad? You promised to bring them back.”  
  
“You wished to find them,” he corrected. He leapt onto her shoulder and pressed his paw to her cheek, and suddenly she wasn’t in her room anymore. Wherever she was, it was dark, only lit with creepy purple light. It looked like a prison; thousand of barred openings filled the walls.  
  
“They’re over here,” Kyubey said, indicating one cell. Matt was half-curled in Dad’s lap, and neither of them looked well. Matt’s leg was gashed open, dried blood staining the jumpsuit he wore.  
  
Katie reached out to him, and found her hand passed through him. She stumbled, overbalancing, and found herself back in her room on Earth. Her face was wet. She touched her cheek and realized they were tears.  
  
“What was that?” she demanded, grabbing Kyubey by the scruff.  
  
“A vision. You’ve found your family, Katie Holt.”  
  
“Where are they?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“You’re lying!” Her grip on his neck tightened.  
  
“I am incapable of such a thing.”  
  
Katie sobbed, dropping him. He didn’t seem bothered. Dad…Matt…  
  
She had to find them, had to get them back home safely. She couldn’t let them stay there. But how was she supposed to get there?  
  
“So, Kyubey, if I’m a magical girl…what exactly can I do?”  
  
Kyubey tipped his head to one side. “I really can’t say. Wishes are unpredictable. Probability says that you would have enhanced senses. Of course, every magical girl has a weapon and the ability to locate witches and other magical girls.”  
  
Katie thought about a weapon for a moment and found herself holding a green-hilted dagger.  
  
“You learn fast, Katie Holt.”  
  
“Thanks, Kyubey.” She put a hand on his head and rubbed behind an ear. He pushed up against her palm, like a cat. “Sorry for dropping you.”  
  
“Why don’t we go out and hunt for witches?”

* * *

Pidge groaned as Lance started flirting with yet another girl. He hadn’t had much luck tonight, even by his standards, and it was starting to show. His fingerguns seemed to droop and his smile wasn’t quite as gleaming.  
  
The girl patted his cheek and walked off, and Lance drooped.  
  
“She’ll be back,” he said. He didn’t sound sure of it. “I’m going to go get some fresh air, I’ll be right back.”  
  
Fifteen minutes later, he wasn’t back yet.  
  
“Should we go after him?” Pidge asked.  
  
“He’ll be fine,” Hunk said. “I think.”  
  
“Yeah, I’m going after him.”  
  
Pidge stepped out into the night. Something felt wrong, something magical. Kyubey hopped onto her shoulder as she followed Lance’s trail.  
  
She ran into Lance about two blocks later, and the first thing she noticed was the small mark on his neck and his odd posture. He looked limp, like he was being controlled by strings.  
  
“A witch’s kiss,” Kyubey explained. “He’s going to kill himself.”  
  
“Not if I can help it,” Pidge said, and grabbed him by the wrist. “Hey Lance, there you are. Come on, Hunk’s getting worried.”  
  
Lance’s eyes were unfocused. “Tell him not to worry. I’m leaving.”  
  
“Yeah, it’s getting pretty late, isn’t it? We should head back to school and get some sleep.”  
  
“Don’t worry, Pidge. I’ll get enough sleep.”  
  
“Ugh, you’re impossible.” She grabbed Lance by the arm and started hauling him back, using as much strength as she dared—she didn’t want to break his arm. That was a last resort option.  
  
Lance stumbled along behind her as she hauled him back to the club. Hunk looked sick with worry.  
  
“Hunk, make sure Lance doesn’t wander off? He’s been—“ she hesitated for a half second. She couldn’t tell him that Lance nearly got eaten by a witch. “—drugged.”  
  
Hunk squeaked. “Drugged?”  
  
“He should be fine in a bit, I’m going to go find whoever did this to him.”  
  
“Please be careful!” Hunk said, but she was already out the door and transforming.  
  
She tracked the witch down to a barrier in an alleyway, not far from where she had found Lance. Ghostly musical notes floated around the pulsing circle.  
  
Pidge stepped inside, and found herself in the labyrinth. It was dark and misty, and hard to see in even for Pidge. Most people wouldn’t be able to see anything at all. She found herself in a room full of masks, and in a large mirror in the center was the witch. It was vaguely humanoid and wore a white gown that shifted whenever Pidge tried to look at it. The dress was two-dimensional, like a paper cutout, but the body looked more like a wax figurine. Looking at it hurt her brain.  
  
Pidge lunged forward, driving her knife into the witch’s throat. The glass shattered when she hit the mirror, and then there were dozens of copies of it.  
  
Nice job, she scolded herself.  
  
Several of them lunged at her, and she fought them off, parrying and dodging. There had to be a way to defeat them that wouldn’t make more of them like some awful hydra.  
  
Wasn’t the hydra defeated by burning the stumps? And mirrors were made out of glass, couldn’t they be melted down? Plus, it really did look like the witch was made of paper and wax.  
  
She just needed a spark. She summoned a second knife, and scraped the blades together, hoping it would work.  
  
A spark landed on the dress of one of the mirror-witches, and it screamed—an awful screech—as the dress caught fire. It reached out to the others, but they were already swarming Pidge and ignoring it. Her blades skittered together and sent up a flurry of sparks. A dozen of them caught, and they were so close together that the rest of them went up in flames as well.  
  
Pidge had just forgotten one thing: she was surrounded by the mirror-witches, and they were all on fire.  A bead of sweat ran down her temple as the flames licked higher. Melted wax oozed along the floor, sticking to her boots.  
  
Being a magical girl, of course, had its perks. When the inferno died down, she was fine aside from a layer of soot on her jacket. She broke her boots free and stepped gingerly over the puddle of melted mirror, wax, and paper ash. The labyrinth still hadn’t dissolved, and there was no Grief Seed, which meant…  
  
Which meant she had almost been killed by a gang of familiars, which was embarrassing.  
  
She set off through the labyrinth, hunting for the actual witch.  
  
A silhouette sat in front of a massive organ, playing discordant music. She focused her energy for a moment, and made sure this was really the witch before throwing her knife. It lodged in the witch’s back.  
  
Large shadow hands reached out of the witch’s back and grabbed Pidge tightly. She cut them off at the wrists. They fell to the floor and dissolved into black smoke. The witch’s head turned, snapping around like an owl. It had no features, just two circles that seemed darker than the rest of the witch’s body, which was impressive because Pidge didn’t know that there was a color darker than pitch black.  
  
The witch was still playing with one pair of arms as Pidge lunged forward, cutting the witch to shreds. It screamed, and parts of the labyrinth started falling. Glass shattered, and familiars started swarming. Pidge ignored them, focusing on the witch. With the witch dead, these familiars would disappear as well.  
  
She slashed and hacked, ignoring the familiars cutting at her arms, back, and legs—it would hurt once the adrenaline wore off—and the witch trying to strangle her.  
  
The witch vanished into smoke, and the labyrinth collapsed. All that was left was a Grief Seed, balanced on its sharp point.  
  
She held her Soul Gem out in front of her, letting its magic heal the cuts across her body.  
  
“You should really be more careful in your fights,” Kyubey scolded.  
  
“Aww, do you care about me?” She picked up the Grief Seed and tapped it to her Soul Gem, watching the grime clouding the bright green gem being soaked into the seed. She tossed it to Kyubey. The oval on his back glowed and the Seed vanished.  
  
She transformed back into her regular clothes and pulled out her phone to text Hunk.  
  
> To: Hunk  
> hows lance?  
  
> From: Hunk  
> passed out  
> we should get him into bed  
> it’s pretty late anyway  
  
> To: Hunk  
> yea  
> i’ll meet you at the club?  
  
> From: Hunk  
> please be safe  
  
> To: Hunk  
> i’m three blocks away  
> i’ll be fine  
  
> From: Hunk  
> DO NOT TEMPT FATE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Opera Witch, the witch of obsession. Her nature is musical. Anyone who hears her songs will be drawn into her labyrinth. She seeks to hide her true form behind mirrors and masks.


	2. I need a favor ☆ It's not fair

Pidge stared at the swirling, blotchy stains on her Soul Gem. With no witches in space and therefore no Grief Seeds, it had been slowly but steadily growing darker.  
  
“Hey, Kyubey. I’m not using any magic or anything, why is it getting darker?”  
  
He stretched, cat-like. “Just keeping your body moving takes magic.”  
  
“But…that doesn’t make sense. People without magic manage to stay alive without a problem.”  
  
“That’s easy, Katie Holt.” He sounded like he was explaining something simple. “Your body is dead.”  
  
_“What?”_  
  
“Your body is dead, so it takes magic to keep it moving and prevent rot.” He sighed. “Humans always react like this, and I don’t understand it. What did you think your Soul Gem was? We remove your soul and put it in an easy to protect object so that you can fight longer and harder than a normal human. Say you were stabbed with a spear. A normal human would go into shock and die. You, a magical girl, could keep going unless your Soul Gem was damaged.”  
  
Pidge backed away from him as he spoke, shaking her head. “You’re lying.”  
  
“I told you before, I cannot lie.”  
  
“You _tricked_ me!”  
  
“I told you you would become a magical girl. It’s hardly my fault you humans don’t ask important questions.”  
  
Pidge stopped short as something else occurred to her. “Kyubey, what will happen when I run out of magic?”  
  
“You’ll become a witch, of course.”  
  
Pidge could hear her blood rushing in her ears. All this…everything she did…  
  
She wasn’t even alive, she was going to turn into a witch—she couldn’t kid herself, her options were either die or turn into a witch—and when she did, she would destroy all of her friends. They wouldn’t even know what happened to them. They would die, trapped on a ship with a monster. They were already trapped on a ship with a monster, because what else did you call someone who hunted her own kind?  
  
She couldn’t let herself turn into a witch. She’d rather die than hurt her team—her family.  
  
_Her family._ Even if she managed to find them before turning into a witch, even if she never turned into a witch—how could she face them, knowing she was a walking corpse? Knowing that she would have to hunt and kill and eat her own kind for the rest of her not-life? She didn’t deserve to see them again, didn’t deserve to be a part of Voltron.  
  
“Why,” she whispered. “Why turn us into magical girls if we’re just going to turn into witches?”  
  
“What do you know about entropy, Katie Holt?”  
  
The non-sequitur caught her off balance. “It’s the measure of disorder in a system. What does that have to do with anything?”  
  
“Specifically, it’s wasted energy, right? When energy changes from one form to another, some energy is lost. But there’s one type of energy that is exempt from thermodynamics: emotional energy. The transition between hope and despair produces an unimaginable amount of energy, and none of it can fall victim to entropy. The entire magical girl system is built to harness this emotional energy and use it to stave off entropy and prevent the universe’s eventual death. You turning into a witch will save the universe!”  
  
Katie stepped away from Kyubey, back and back until she hit the door. She spun on her heel and ran out of the room entirely.  
  
She went to the training room and grabbed a large knife from the weapons rack. She transformed quickly—better not get her clothes bloody, if this worked. Or didn’t work. She wasn’t sure what she wanted, right now. She held the knife at arm’s length, point facing her stomach. Before she could think about it, she pulled it forward, into her stomach. The point went through her stomach and guts and out her back.  
  
It hurt, but once the initial surge of pain wore off, she realized that she was still alive, still breathing. She pulled the knife out. It was covered in blood, _her_ blood, and enough of it stained her dress and the floor that a normal person would be dead.  
  
She held the Gem in front of her gaping wound and felt it heal up. The skin closed, and the blood vanished. She transformed back into her regular clothes and stared at the Gem. It was nearly completely black. She didn’t have much time left.  
  
She stopped outside of Lance’s door. Her Soul Gem sat innocuously in the palm of her hand. It was the perfect size for target practice, but she didn’t trust her own aim, not for this.  
  
The door slid open when she knocked, revealing Lance.  
  
“What’s up, Pidgey?”  
  
“I need a favor.” She held out the Gem. _The transition between hope and despair_ , Kyubey had said. “Can you shoot this?”  
  
“Uh. Yeah, why?”  
  
“It’s a long story. Please, Lance?”  
  
“Sure, I’ll do it in the morning.” He turned to go inside, but Pidge caught his arm.  
  
“No! It needs to be destroyed before—before—” Her throat closed up. _Before I turn into a witch. Before I kill you all._ “It needs to be destroyed now.”  
  
Lance ruffled her hair. “Alright, kiddo.”  
  
Another time Pidge might have protested that she wasn’t a kid. It didn’t seem worth it, now.  
  
“ _But_ ,” Lance continued, oblivious, “Because you interrupted my nighttime routine, you have to do the dishes for a week.”  
  
“Deal.” She wouldn’t be around that long, anyway. She dropped the Soul Gem into Lance’s hand.  
  
“Huh. Where’d you find it?”  
  
“…Back on Earth.”  
  
“And you’re sure you want me to shoot it?” Lance looked at her sideways.  
  
“Yes! As soon as possible!”  
  
“Alright, alright, Pidge. Chill.” He tossed it in the air, and Pidge hoped he wouldn’t catch it and it would fall and break.  
  
It didn’t, though, and Pidge trailed after Lance back to the training room. The blood had already been soaked up by the room, and the blood-soaked knife had vanished. Lance set the Gem on a stand on one side of the room, and Pidge stood behind him while he readied his bayard and aimed. Her hands twitched by her side. She wanted to run up and hug him, to say goodbye, but if he knew what would happen—that if this worked she would be dead, truly dead—he would never go through with it.  
  
_I’m sorry, everyone. Tell my family I love them._  
  
For a moment, she could have sworn she saw the shot coming towards her.  
  
—  
  
The egg-thing Pidge asked him to shoot shattered into a million shards of green with a crash that seemed much bigger than the tiny stone should be able to make.  
  
“Why were you so worried about this thing anyway, Pidge?” Lance said, turning around on his heel. Pidge had vanished. His smile dimmed. “Pidge?”  
  
He took a half-step and nearly tripped over Pidge’s outstretched arm. Her eyes were open, flat and sightless. She didn’t look like she was breathing.  
  
“Pidge!” He knelt down beside her and grabbed her shoulder, shaking her. She was limp. “Pidge, this isn’t funny!”  
  
He pressed his fingers to her neck, searching for a pulse. She wasn’t breathing, her heart wasn’t beating. This wasn’t a prank—or if it was one, Pidge’s sense of humor needed recalibration.  
  
“SHIRO!” he shouted. “ALLURA, CORAN, _SOMEBODY! **HELP!** ”_  
  
Lance shoved Pidge over to her back and tried not to panic. He laced his fingers together and started to perform the chest compressions, counting under his breath. One hundred compressions per minute.  
  
_CPR only has a ten percent success rate,_ Professor Miller had said while explaining the technique. _A few seconds can mean the difference between life and death._  
  
He heard a rib crack. _Better a broken rib than dead._ He kept going, matching his thrusting arms to the pulse pounding in his ears. Every part of him was focused on one thing: don’t let Pidge die.  
  
His arms were starting to ache—he had lost track of his compressions at two hundred—but there was no sign of any help, so he had to keep going. If he stopped, Pidge was definitely dead.  
  
An impossibly long time later, the door slid open. Lance didn’t dare stop, even to look up. _Bum– bum– bum–_ went his arms as he forced her heart to beat. Everything but Pidge faded out to vague static. Shiro grabbed him and pushed him aside, taking over the chest compressions.  
  
“What happened?” Allura asked.  
  
“I don’t _know_ ,” Lance said, and now that he wasn’t single-mindedly focused on _don’t let Pidge die_ tears started to well up in his eyes, panic and despair. “She asked me to shoot—she had this little egg thing she had brought from Earth—she asked me to shoot it and when I did she just collapsed and she wasn’t breathing and didn’t have a heartbeat and I don’t know what happened, I _swear_.”  
  
His hands were shaking, or maybe his vision was just blurry with tears. Allura pulled him into a tight hug. He glanced over her shoulder at Pidge. Her skin was even paler than it usually was, and her body was completely limp under Shiro’s steadily thrusting hands.  
  
“Couldn’t a healing pod help her?” he asked, feeling small and useless.  
  
He felt Allura shake her head against his neck and shoulder. “They can’t bring people back from the dead like this.”  
  
The door slid open a bit later, revealing Coran with Hunk and Keith. Keith looked like he might be sick when he saw Pidge. Hunk’s face was ashen.  
  
“How long has it been?” Keith asked Lance.  
  
“I…I don’t know. Five minutes?”  
  
Allura made a noise like she disagreed. “It took five minutes just for Shiro and I to get here. It’s probably been about ten minutes, maybe longer.”  
  
“I’ll take over, Shiro,” Keith said.  
  
Shiro rolled back onto his heels and Keith started his compressions.  
  
Hunk tapped his knuckles together nervously. “So…if it’s been ten minutes, and she hasn’t woken up…”  
  
“She’ll wake up,” Lance said, more harshly than he meant to, pulling himself free of Allura’s grip. “She has to, she hasn’t…she needs to find her brother and father. She can’t die before we find them!” He looked beseechingly at Shiro.  
  
“It’s been ten minutes,” Shiro said. “I don’t want to say it, but there’s a good chance that she isn’t going to be waking up.”  
  
“No!” Lance screamed. “No, she can’t—she can’t be—it’s not _fair!_ You aren’t supposed to die before you’ve reached your goal! She still needs to find her family, she can’t just be dead!”  
  
Something in Shiro’s face changed. He grabbed Lance by the wrists and pulled him into a hug, running a hand along his back. “I know, buddy. I know. It’s not fair.”  
  
Behind him, Hunk burst into racking sobs.  
  
“Why are you all talking like it’s too late?” Keith snapped from Pidge’s side, still trying to force her blood to flow and her heart to beat. “I’m not giving up on her yet! As long as there’s a chance, I’m going to keep going!”  
  
“Keith,” Shiro said, impossibly calm. “We’d need a defibrillator to revive her at this point, and we don’t have one.”  
  
Tears welled up in Keith’s eyes. “I can’t give up,” he whispered. “There’s still a chance.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Keith.” Shiro’s facade was cracking, and there were tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Keith’s hands stilled on her chest. A tear splashed down on his knuckles.  
  
“It’s not _fair_.” His voice was rough.  
  
Hunk pulled him into a hug, and Keith crumbled in his arms. Lance joined the hug, and all three of them sobbed together for a while.  
  
Allura put a hand on Shiro’s shoulder, but he pulled away, shaking his head.  
  
All of this was his fault, Lance knew. He should have asked Pidge why she wanted him to shoot that egg thing, should have made sure she was okay. Hadn’t she seemed quieter lately, less energetic and more cynical? He had thought it was just the fighting, the near-constant battles they fought. He should have noticed that she was withdrawing. And then that last conversation; she had seemed better and he had thought she was dealing with whatever was bothering her. How had he been so wrong?  
  
“It’s not your fault, Lance,” Shiro said softly, resting a hand on Lance’s back. “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”  
  
“I should have,” Lance whispered. “I should have _noticed_ , I should have made sure she was okay, she’s been acting weird and I knew but I didn’t say anything and I should have.”  
  
Hunk pulled him in tighter.  
  
—  
  
None of them wanted to move, but Shiro herded them out of the training room and into the lounge while he, Allura, and Coran moved Pidge’s body into a cryopod.  
  
Once he was alone in his room, he let himself break down in the sobs he’d been keeping back since he got to the training room and saw Pidge’s motionless body. He wanted to howl, wanted to tear the universe apart to _bring her back_ —Pidge, who had only wanted to find her family, Pidge, who was too young for any of this; for war and sightless eyes and stiff limbs.  
  
If they found the other Holts, he’d have to tell them. They’d probably hate him for dragging her up here and getting her killed, which was entirely deserved. He was the adult, he should have been watching them better. He had failed them, failed his team, failed everyone.  
  
—  
  
Allura stared at the little white creature. Its tail swished behind him.  
  
“Make a contract with me," it said, "And become a magical girl!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not sorry


End file.
